The encapsulation, entrapment, enrobing and drying of natural and artificial flavors, plant extracts, micronutrient as nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, and other active ingredients present certain challenges. Ideally, the drying is gentle so as to not volatilize, oxidize, or otherwise damage the active ingredient. Thus, freeze-drying is often used. However, freeze drying is quite expensive, non-continuous, and difficult to use industrially. On the other hand, spray drying is much more rapid, but is not as gentle. Thus, a starting material to be spray dried will often need to have 10-20% excess active ingredient to compensate for loss due to volatilization or oxidation. A further challenge is obtaining release at a desired rate of the active ingredient in an aqueous environment such as a food, or in the digestive system of an animal (e.g., a consumer of a food, supplement, or medicine that is or is produced with the dried formulation). Thus, there remains a need for improved encapsulation, entrapment, enrobing and drying of active ingredients.